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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/wrongsofirelandfOOpalm 



THE 

WRONGS OF IRELAND 



■ FROM 



THE INVASION OF HENEY 11. 



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BY 



S. W. PALMER. 



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NEW-YORK 



GASPER C. CHILDS, PRINTER, No. 80 VESEY STREET 




1850. 




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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred 

and fifty, 

BY S. W. PALMER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
District of New-York. 






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\ 



P E E F A C E . 



The object of this little work, which is rather a compiled than an 
original one, is to show, in a plain and simple manner, that Ireland 
has been ever since the invasion of Henry 11, a persecuted and oppress- 
ed country ; and as such entitled in an eminent degree to the sympa- 
thies of all nations, particulftrly of that one 



Whose star spangled banner in glory does wave, 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.' 



THE AUTHOR. 



New- York, Jan. 1, 1850. 



LAWS. 



The following extracts from " Hibernicse Vindicse," will 
prove that this oppressed country from the date of the invasion 
of Henry II, has been almost an uninterrupted scene of warfare, 
oppression, rapine, arid confiscation. 

By law, the murder of an Irishman was punishable only by 
a fine, w^hereas the murder of an Englishman was a capital of- 
fence. 

Marriage or fosterage with the natives (gossipred) which was 
a tie of uncommon force, w^ere declared high treason. 

Forfeiture of land was the penalty if an Enghshman using 
the Irish language, or Irish customs, or Irish apparel, unless se- 
curity was given to renounce them. 

Heavy penalties were enacted against such of the English as 
allowed Irishmen to graze their lands. 

The property of an Irishman about to depart the country might 
be seized by an Englishman, who was entitled to one-half as a 
premium, the other to be forfeited to the king. 

An Englishman who was robbed by an Irishman, might re- 
prize himself on the whole stripe to which the offender belonged. 
Englishmen who claimed debts as due by Irishmen, might, in 
corporate towns, without the aid of a magistrate, seize the pro- 
perty of the debtors, if they came within the precints. And 
there was nothing to prevent the seizure in the case of a pre- 
tended, as well as of a real bonafide debt. 

Any Englishman, meeting an Irishman, robbing, or going to 
rob, or coming from robbing, unless he had an Englishman in 
his company, might kill him and cut off his head, without trial, 
and on bringing the head to the portrief of the town, he was 
further authorized to levy " with his own hands," and those of 



b LAWS. 

his aiders, two pence for every plough, one penny for every half 
ploughed land, as well as for every house and property worth 
forty shillings. 

By another law, any man found within the pale with the beard 
on the upper-lip, which was the Irish custom, might be seized, 
w^th his goods, as an Irish enemy, and ransomed as such. 

By another law, five of the best men of every stripe were 
obliged to deliver up all of their surnames, charged with offences, 
or to answer for the offences themselves. 

If any Archbishop or Bishop, promoted an Irishman to the 
situation of a canon, or to any ecclesiastical situation whatever, 
he forfeited the whole amount of his living. 

In all the Parliament rolls which are extant from the fortieth 
year of Edward III., when the statutes of Kilkenny were enacted, 
till the reign of Henry VIIL, we find the degenerate and disobe- 
dient English called rebels; but the Irish which w^ere not in the 
King's peace, are called enemies. 

All these statutes speak of English rebels and Irish enemies, 
as if the Irish had never been in the condition of subjects, but 
always out of the protection of the law, and were, indeed, in 
worse case than aliens of any foreign realm that was in amity 
with the crown of England. 

For by divers heavy penal laws, the English were forbidden to 
marry, to make gossips with the Irish, or to have any trade or 
commerce in their markets or fairs; nay, there was a law made 
no longer since than the tw^enty-eighth year of Henry VIIL, that 
the English should not marry with any person of Irish blood, 
though he had gotten a charter of denization, unless he had done 
both homage and fealty to the King in the chancery, and were 
also bound by recognizance with sureties, to continue a loyal 
subject. 

A set of needy adventurers passing over from Britain in a con- 
stant succession, made no scruple of enriching themselves by the 
most unjustifiable methods. There was not a native who could 
be secure from their rapacity. 



LAWS RESPECTING RELIGION. 



'• I am very sensible that, in pursuing the historical account, T shall have the 
management of a very difficult province. If a writer cannot divest him- 
self, not only ef the humanity of a just and generous Heathen, but of the 
charity of a Christian, he shall be pursued with the name of a favorer 
of Popery." — Nai^son. 



At the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne of England, 
1558, the Roman Catholic religion was professed by the Irish 
nation, with scarcely an exception. There was not one of any 
other denomination for every ten thousand Ca,tholics. Through- 
out three-fourths of the Island there was not a Protestant in ex- 
istence, and the mass of the nation knew not what the word meant. 
In such a state of things, so utterly inauspicious for her views, 
Queen Elizabeth, head of the Church of England, conceived the 
preposterous and unholy design of subjecting the exercise of the 
Catholic religion in Ireland to the most oppressive penalties and 
forfeitures, hy act of the Parliament of that country, in the year 
1560. 

The following are some of the leading features of this odious act. 

1. Any clergyman who refused to use the Common Prayer in 
his church, or who refused any form of worship, rite, ceremony, 
or manner of celebrating the Lord's Supper, openly or privily, 
that was mentioned in the said Book of Common Prayer, was to 
forfeit all the profit or income of his benefice for one whole year, 
and also suffer imprisdnment for six months. 

2. For the second offence, he was to forfeit his income forever, 
and suffer imprisonment for one year. 

3. For the third offence, he was to suffer imprisonment for life. 

4. Laymen, for the first offence, were to undergo imprisonment 
for one year, and the second, imprisonme^nt for life. 

5. Any person who dared, by any interludes, plays, songs, 
rhymes, or by other open words, declare or speak anything in 



8 



LAWS RESPECTING RELIGION. 



derogation of the Book of Common Prayer, or interrupt any 
clergyman in the use of it, for the first offence, was subject to a 
fine of one hundred marks, for the second four hundred, and for the 
third offence, was to forfeit all his goods and chattels, and suffer 
imprisonment for hfe. 

6. Every person in the kingdom absenting himself from the 
usual place where Common Prayer was used, on Sundays and 
Holidays w^as subject to a fine of twelve pence, and to the cen- 
sures of the Church. 

7. By another clause, the Queen, or the Lord Deputy, or other 
Governor or Governess of Ireland, were authorized, with the 
advice of Council, to publish such further ceremonies or rites as 
they might judge proper for the advancement of God's glory, the 
edifying of the Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy 
mysteries and sacraments. 



RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 



Religious persecution is one of the greatest stains attached to 
human nature. It is in hostility with the most clear and expli- 
cit doctrine of Jesus Christ, and its absurdity is about equal to 
its wickedness ; as it supposes what never was, and what never can 
be, that men can change their belief at will, as they can change 
their dress. But our opinions are as independent of our volition, 
except where reason comes in aid of the change, as our complex- 
ion or our height. Wherever, or by whomsoever perpetrated, 
this odious offence and its perpetrators merit the curse of God 
and man. It makes no difference in the eye of Heaven whether 
the victim be fined, imprisoned, or immolated at Madrid, in 
Paris, in London or Dublm. It is a crime for which there never 
was, nor can be, any apology or extenuation, and which, in a pe- 
culiar degree, cries to heaven for vengeance. 

That every man has a right, inherent and indefeasible, to wor- 
ship God according to the dictates of his conscience, provided 
they do not lead to the commission of crimes, is one of those 
eternal maxims to which man, in every clime, unsophisticated 
by religious establishments, must bear testimony. The time, it is 
to be hoped, will arrive, when it will be a subject of astonish- 
ment, and appear wholly incredible that it could have ever 
entered into the mind of any human being to coerce the religious 
opinions of his fellow-men, or that he could have been so supremely 
wicked as to punish them, with fine, imprisonment, or death, for 
the conscientious discharge of their religious duties. 

It is, I repeat, at all times and in all places, deserving of ab- 
horrence and execration. But it has a peculiar malignity and 
turpitude when perpetrated by the reformers. To be satisfied of 
this truth, requires but a small degree of reflection and candor. 
To elucidate this point, I shall select two nations, France and 



10 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 

Englarul, the former, at the moment when Calvinism was first 
preached there, — the latter when the reformed religion w^as es- 
tablished. 

At that lime, the Roman Catholic religion universally prevailed 
in France. It rested on the authority of General Councils, com- 
posed of •bishops and priests, convened from every part of Chris- 
tendom. Those Councils are, by Catholics, universally believed 
to be infallible, and their religion is regarded as emanating from 
Jesus Christ himself, and the same as taught by the Apostles and 
Disciples. It is wholly foreign from my purpose to discuss the 
question, whether these opinions were just or the contrary. 
Whatever decision that question might receive would not, in the 
slightest degree affect the argument. They beheved that all in- 
novations were heresies and schisms, and deserving of punish- 
ment. However lamentable and unjustifiable, therefore, it may 
be, it is not very wonderful that they had recourse to pains and 
penalties to prevent the spread of what they regarded as pesti- 
ferous innovations. 

But the case of England was incalculably different. The 
great basis of the reformation rested on the right of every man 
to interpret the Scriptures for himself, unfettered by the decrees 
of Popes, or Councils, or synods. On the Protestant standard 
was imprinted in conspicuous characters, " Search the Scriptures." 
There the rule of faith is distinctly developed. The reformers, 
therefore, having duly searched the Scriptures, abandoned from 
conscientious motives, the religion of their ancestors and their 
youth, and chose a religion for themselves, it would appear that 
nothing but insanity could have led them to suppose that they 
had any right to control their neighbors' religious opinions, or 
that their neighbors did not possess an equal right tvith them- 
selves, either to choose a new religion, or to adhere to the old, 
as their conscience might prescribe. 

Yet, in opposition to the dictates of reason and common sense, 
the voice of history proclaims that, in England, and indeed, in 
almost every part of Europe, the Reformers, when possessed of 
power, persecuted not merely the followers of the old religion, 



RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 11 

but even those who, like themselves, had abandoned that religion, 
but chosen a different system from their own. This is a fertile 
topic, and I shall only, for the present, refer, for the confirmation 
of these positions, to the Noyades of Switzerland, the proceed- 
ings of the synod of Dort, in Holland, to the horrible persecu- 
tions of the Society of Friends, in England, of the Covenanters, 
in Scotland, by Lauderdale and archbishop Sharp, the latter of 
which were not exceeded by those of the Vaudoise and Albigenses. 

I trust, therefore, it will appear as clear as the noon-day sun, 
that the persecuting reformer was far more culpable than the per- 
secuting Catholic, odious as the latter undoubtedly was. To the 
active and inherent turpitude of one of the most hideous crimes — 
a crime offering outrage to the mild dictates of the religion both 
descriptions of Christians professed, the former added the grossest 
inconsistency — the most direct violation of the vital and funda- 
mental principle on w^hich his religion was established. 

It hence follows, although, every inquisitor, whether a resident 
of London, or Madrid, of Lisbon, Glasgow, or Dublin, ought, by 
the lextalionis, to have been scourged by his own lash, hung by 
his ow^n gibbet, impaled on his owm stake, or roasted with his 
own faggot, that if it w^ere possible to make a scale in which a 
due proportion should be observed between the crime and pun- 
ishment, the reforming persecutor might lay claim to a pre-emi- 
nence over the Roman Catholic, 

The Reformation, whatever may have been its operation in 
other countries, produced the most deleterious consequences in 
Ireland. One of the first fruits of it w^as, to expel the old clergy 
from the Churches without supplying their places with successors. 

Another, was a sacrilegious robbery of the Catholic Churches, 
which were generally despoiled of their furniture and ornaments, 
by persons appointed to remove crucifixes, mass-books, and other 
articles from them. The spoils were publicly sold by the plun- 
derers for their benefit. To this rapine they were encouraged by 
the hostility openly manifested towards the old Church, by their 
intolerant rulers. This unholy proceeding was carried to such a 
profligate length, that it was finally found necessary to pass an 
act to prevent it. 



12 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 

The following extracts from the contemporary writers, will 
fully substantiate these statements : 

" The garrison of Athlone issued forth with a barbarous fury, 
and pillaged the famous Church of Clonmacaoise, tearing away 
the most inoffensive ornaments, books, bells, plate, windows, 
furniture of every kind, so as to leave the shrine of their favor- 
ite St. Kieraw, a hideous monument of sacrilege." — Leland. 

" Some of them, (the Bishops,) whose dioceses are in remote 
parts, somewhat out of the world's eye, doe not at all bestow the 
benefices which are in their own donation upon any, but keep 
them in their own hands, and set their own servants and horse- 
boys to take up the tithes and fruites of them, with the which 
some of them purchase great lands, and build faire castels upon 
the same, upon which abuse, if any question be moved, they have 
a very seemly color of excuse that they have no worthy minis- 
ters to bestow them upon, but keep them so bestowed for any 
such sufficient person, as any shall bring unto them." — Spenser. 

" Whatever disorders you see in the Church of England, yee 
may finde there, and many more, viz. : grosse simony, greedy 
covetuousnesse, fleshly incontinency, careless sloath, and generally 
all disoedered life in the common clergyman. And besides all 
these, they have their particular enormities ; for all Irish priests 
"which now enjoy the church livings, they are in manner mere 
laymen, saving that they have taken holy orders, but otherwise 
they doe goe and live like laymen — follow all kinds of husbandry 
and other worldly affairs as other Irishmen doe. They neither 
read Scripture, nor preach to the people, nor administer the com- 
munion ; but baptisme they doe ; for they christen yet after 
the Popish fashion, only they take the tithes and offerings, and 
gather what fruite else they may of their living." — lb, 

" It is great wonder to see the oddes which is between the zeale 
•of Popish priests, and the ministers of the Gospel ; for they spare 
not to come out of Spaine, from Rome, from Romes, (Rheims) 
by long toyle and dangerous travyaling hither, where they know 
peril! of death awayteth them, and no reward or richesse is to 
be found, only to draw^ the people unto the Church of Rome ; 



RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 



13 



whereas some of our idle ministers, having, as way for credite 
and estimation, thereby opened unto them, and having the Hvings 
of the country e offered unto them without paines and without 
perile, will neither for the same, nor any love of God, nor zeal 
of rehgion, or for all the good they may doe by winning souls 
to God's harvest, which is ever ready for the sickle, and all the 
fields yellow long ago." — Ih. 

" The first is, the Churches nowe so spoyled, as well by the 
ruine of the temples, as the discipacion and imbeascinge of the 
patrimonye, and most of all, for want of sufficient ministers; as 
so deformed and overthrown a Churche there is not, I am sure, 
in any region where Christ is professed, and preposterous it seem- 
eth to me to begin reformacion of the politique parte and to ne- 
glect the religious."- — Sydney. 

^ " I was advertized of the particular estate of each Churche in 
the bishopricke of Meithe, (Meath) — (being the best inhabited 
countrie of all this realm,) by the honest, zealous, and learned 
Bishop of the same, Mr. Hugh Brady, a goodly minister for the 
Gospel, and a good sej-vant to your highness, who went fiom 
churche to churche hym self, and found that there are within his 
dioces two hundred and twenty-four Churches, of which number 
one hundred and five are impropriated to sondrie possessions 
nowe of your highness, and all leased out for years, or in fee 
farme, rent to severall farmers, and great gayne reaped out of 
them above the rent which your Majestic receiveth ; no parson, 
or vicair, resident upon any of theim, and a very simple or sorrye 
curat, for the most part appointe.l to serve theim, amonge which 
nomber of curatts, only eighteen were founde abele to speake 
English."— 76. 

" No one howse standinge for any of theim to dwell in. In 
maney places, the very walles of the churches doune; verie few 
chauncells covered, wyndowes and dores, ruyned or spoyled. 
There are 52 other parrishe churches in the same dioces, who 
have viccars indued upon them, better served and maynteined 
then the other, yet but badlye. There are 52 parishe churches 
more, residue of the first nomber of 224, which perteine to dyvers 



14 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 

perticuler lords, and these, though in better estate then the rest 
commonlye are, yet farre from well. If this be the estate of the 
churche in the best peopled dyoces, and best governed countrye 
of this yonr realme (as in troth it is) easye it is for your majestie 
to conjecture, in what case the rest is, where little or conforma- 
tion, either of religion or manners, hath yet bene planted and 
contynued amonge theme." — lb. 

*' Uppon the face of the eerthe, where Christ is professed, there 
is not a churche in so miserable a case; the miserye of whiche 
consistethe in thiese three perticulars, the ruyne of the verie tem- 
ples theimselves; the want of good mynisters to serve in them, 
when they shall be re-edified ; competent lyvinge for the mynis- 
beinge wel chosen." — lb. 

"And, though the outrages in the civil government were 
great, yet nothing to be compared to the ecclesiastical state, for 
that was too far out of order, the temples all ruined, the parish 
churches for the most part without curates and pastors, no ser- 
vice said, no God honored nor Christ preached, nor sacraments 
ministered.'' — Hooker upon Hollinshed. 

"There has been so little care taken, as that the greatest part 
of the Churches within the pale be still in their ruins; so as the 
common people, (whereof many, without doubt, would conform 
themselves) have no place to resort to where they may hear 
divine service." — Davies. 

" For the holding of two livings and but two with care, since 
you approve me in the substance I will yield to you in the cir- 
cumstance of time. Indeed, my lord, I knew it was bad — very 
bad in Irelapd ; but, that it was so stark naught I did not believe, 
six benefits, valuable to find the minister cloths. In six parishes 
scarce six comes to church." — Stafford. 

" The best entrance to the cure, will be clearly to discover the 
state of the patient, which I find many ways distempered; an 
unlearned clergy, who have not so much as the outward form of 
churchmen to cover themselves with, or their persons any ways 
reverenced or protected, the churches unbuilt, the parsonage and 
vicarage houses utterly ruined ; the people, through the non-re- 



RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 15 

sidency of the clergy, occasioned by the unlimited shameful num- 
bers of spiritual promotions with care of souls, which they hold 
by commendams; the rites and ceremonies of the churchs run 
over without all decency, habit, or gravity, in the course of their 
service; the possessions of the church to a great proportion, in lay 
hands; the bishops aliening their principal houses and demises 
to their children, to strangers, farming out their jurisdiction to 
mean and unworthy persons ; the Popish titulars, exercising the 
Welsh, a foreign jurisdiction much greater than theirs." — 76. 

" There are seven or eight ministers in each dioceses of good 
sufficiency; and (which is no small continuance of the people in 
Popery stile,) English, which have not the tongue of the people, 
nor can perform any divine office, or converse with them ; and 
which hold many of them two or three or more vicarages a piece; 
even the clerkships themselves are in like manner conferred upon 
the English, and sometimes two or three or more upon one man, 
and ordinarily bought and sold or let to farm." — BarneVs Life 
of Bedell, 

"As scandalous livings naturally make scandalous ministers 
the clergy of the established Church were generally ignorant and 
unlearned, loose and irregular in their lives and conversation, 
negligent of their cures, and very careless of observing uniformity 
and decency in divine worship." — Carte. 

"Nor were the perochial Churches in a better condition than 
the Cathedrals. They had most of them in the country been de- 
stroyed in the troubles, or fallen down for w^ant of covering; the 
livings were very small, and either kept in the bishop's hands by 
way of commendams and sequestrations, or else filled with min- 
isters as scandalous as their income, so that scarce any care was 
taken to catechise the children, or instruct others in the grounds 
of religion; and for years together divine services had not been 
used in any parish. Church throughout Ulster, except in some city 
or provincial town.*' — Ih. 

" There were few Churches k> resort to ; few teachers to 
exhort and instruct; fewer still who could be understood; and 
almost all, at least for the greater part of the reign (Ehzabeth's) 
of scandalous insufficiency." — Seland. 



THREE PARTIES IN IRELAND. 



" For centuries, between the invasion and the close of the 
reign of Elizabeth, there was a strong and as marked a line of 
distinction drawn between the English and the Anglo-Hibernians, 
as between the latter and the descendants of Heber, Hereraon, 
and Milesius, from whom the Irish Nation originally sprung. — 
The English regarded the Anglo-Hibernians with as much jeal- 
ous}^ and as strong a disposition to violate towards them the 
rights of persons and property, as the latter displayed towards 
the Irish. And the rapine and depredation perpetuated on the 
Irish by the Anglo-Hibernians, under the sanction of law, was 
retaliated on the latter by the English. From this view of 
the subject, it appears that there were two different spe'cies of 
oppression and misgovernment existing in Ireland — one on the 
part of the English operating on the Anglo-Hibernians and the 
Irish ; and the other of the Anglo-Hibernians on the Irish, the 
latter groaning under a double yoke, the Anglo-Hibernians under 
a single one. 

The most usual means of accomplishing the nefarious purpose 
of confiscatins: estates in Ireland were : 

1. By implicating the nobility and gentry in some real or fic- 
titious plot, and citing them to appear before the deputies ; if 
they appeared, seizing them and trying them under martial law, 
or by a Jury packed for the purpose, or acting under the dread 
of corporal or other punishment, if their verdict did not quadrate 
with the views of the Government. 

2. If they did not appear, as w^as often the case, in consequence 
of the perfidy so frequently experienced by those who ventured 
to comply with the requisition, regarding their non-appearance 
as a confession of guilt declaring them traitors, and overrunning 
and seizing their territories. 



THREE PARTIES IN IRELAND. 17 

Recourse, in both cases, was generally had to acts of attainder, 
for the confiscation of the estates of the parties. 

An act of attainder is a tremendous instrument of persecution 
and destruction. There are few conceivable cases in which it 
can be used, without manifest injustice and oppression. As it is 
enacted by the highest authority in the State, there lies no ap- 
peal against its overwhelming operation, however atrociously 
wicked. The instances of its use in England are not very numer- 
ous, and rarely occurred except in times of extreme turbulence 
and violence, when the voice of reason and justice was drowned 
in the clamor of faction, cruelty, prejudice, and persecution. — 
Moreover, acts of attainders were passed only by Parlia- 
ments correctly constituted, according to the usual constitutional 
forms ; whereas in Ireland, when confiscation was the object in 
view, the most base, corrupt, and tyrannical measures were 
adopted to secure such a Parliament as would meet the views of 
the Government, however unjust, with the most obsequious com- 
plaisance. 

Acts of attainder were more frequent against the Alglo-Hi- 
bernians, than against the Irish. This arose, as 1 have already 
stated, from their superior wealth. Had the deluded Anglo-Hi- 
bernians acted towards the Irish on principles of justice or equal- 
ity — had they imparted to them the benefit of English laws, the 
two races would have coalesced together, and formed a solid 
phalanx which would have bade defiance to the machination of 
the swarms of locusts who came over in the train of the deputies 
and presidents, and whose objects were " to repair their shattered 
fortunes." 

The extent of these depredations, and the temptations they held 
out to avarice and rapine, may be conceived from the fact that 
of the estates of the Earl of Desmond, who possessed the largest 
landed property of any of the noblemen in the English domin- 
ions, those who drove him to desperation and finally hunted him 
him to death, divided among them and their friends, no less 
than 259,000 acres. 

This Earl and his accomplices had forfeited to the crown, es- 

3 



18 THREE PARTIES IN IRELAND. 

tates amounting in all to 574,628 acres, as the list shows. Above 
one third of them were conveyed to the following persons, lead- 
ing dependents of the court, at the annual rent of jE 1,976 75. bd., 
being about two pence per acre. 

COUNTY. NAMES ACRES. 

Waterford, - - - - Sir Christopher Hutton, - 10,910 

Waterford and Cork, - Sir Walter Raleigh, - - - 12,000 

Kerry, Sir Edward Dewey, - - - 6,000 

.Do. Sir WilUiam Herbert, - - 13,276 

Do. Charles Herbert, - - - - 3,768 

Do. John Hally, 4,222 

Do. ------ Captain Jenkin Conway, - 526 

Do. ------ John Champion, - - - - 1,434 

Cork, Sir William Saint Leger, - 6,000 

Do. Hugh Caff, 6,000 

Do. ------ Sir Thomas Norris, - - - 6,000 

Do. Arthur Robins, - - - - 1,800 

Do. Arthur Hide, 5,574 

Do. Francis Butcher & Hugh Worth, 24,000 

Do. Thomas Say, ----- 3,778 

Do. Arthur Hyde, 11,766 

Do. Edmund Spencer, - - - 3,028 

Do. and Waterford, - Richard Beacon, - - - - 6,000 

Limerick, - - - - Sir William Courtney, - - 10,500 

Do. - - - - Francis Berkly, Esq., - - 7,250 

Do. - - - . Robert Ans^low, - - - - 2,599 

Do. - - - - Richard and Alex. Fitton, - 3',026 

Do. Waterford and Tipperary, Sir Edward Fitton, 11,515 

Do. - - - - Wm. Trenchard, Esq., - - 12,000 

Do. - - - - George Thornton, Esq., - - 1,500 

Do. - - - - Sir George Bourcjiier, - - 12,880 

Do. ... - Henry Bilhngsley, Esq.,- - 11,800 

Inverary, - - - - Thomas, Earl of Ormond, - 3,000 



CONFISCATION IN ULSTER. 



' Treason does never prosper— what 's the reason ? 
That if it prospers, none dare call it treason." 



" The unceasing spoliation perpetrated on the Irish was spe- 
ciously covered with the naantle of rebellion, which was alway§ 
within reach. Every act of resistance, of insult, outrage, or ag- 
gression, was thus designated in proclamations, and afterwards in 
histories. The prescription was simple; it had been administered 
times without number, and never failed of success. It was only 
to make an inroad, or to commit some depredation on such of the 
Irish nobility or gentry, as might be selected for the purpose, the 
more flagrant the better ; provoke them to resistance ; proclaim 
them traitors ; let the armies loose to destroy them, and then con- 
fiscate their estates." 

A vast landed property was thus obtained from O'Neil. I find 
in Debrett's Peerage, the following information of this family : 
" His Lordship is decended from the ancient princes of Ireland, 
whose representative, in 1542, w^as created Earl of Tyrone, by 
Henry VIII., on disclaiming the title of Prince, and submit- 
ting to the English crowm. Their family motto is Tarn seaps 
Empton.* On the shield is a fish naiant, and the red hand. To 
further the plantation of this district. King James L, instituted the 
order of Baronets, in 1611, and then limited the number to two 
hundred, who were to pay into the exchequer as much as would 
maintain thirty soldiers, at eight pence per day, which amounted 
to near X 1,100. Each Baronet has the privilege of bearing on 
his shield, in a canton or in a whole escutcheon, the arms of 
Ulster, viz., in a field argent, a sinister hand gules." I mention 
this circumstance to correct an error I often hear made, — that those 

* The Red Hand of Ireland. 



20 CONFISCATION IN ULSTER. 

families who have the red hand in their coat have some time or 
other committed murder. As people do not reflect, this tale 
passes current, while a little use of common sense would 
convince them of its fallacy. I should suppose from the time 
this order first began, there have been two thousand families cre- 
ated, and probably seven hundred of which are now remaining. 
A precious group of butchers, and very properly marked they 
would be, if such was the fact. 

To proceed with the narrative: — King James L, changed the 
system, and substituted the fraud of the fox for the force of the 
lion. He thus acquired six entire counties in the province of 
Ulster, and five in another. 

Pretended plots and conspiracies were easily fabricated ; they 
were not expensive, and succeeded to admiration, so as to ren- 
der unnecessary the apparatus of a rebellion, which would have 
obliged the peace-loving James to open the doors of the temple 
of Janus, to which he had an unconquerable aversion. This 
was the new system. 

A letter was dropt in the Castle of Dublin, (then the seat of 
Government.) The import of this letter was as follows : — It 
was pretended to be from a Catholic who had been tampered 
with by the traitors, and whom they had endeavored to seduce 
into the conspiracy, but whose loyalty rendered him incorruptible. 
It states : *' That he was called into company by some Popish 
gentlemen, who after administering the oath of secrecy, declared 
their purpose, to murder or poison the Deputy ; to cut off Sir 
Oliver Lambert ; to pick up, one by one, the rest of the oflicers 
of State ; to oblige the small dispersed garrisons, by hunger, to 
submit, or to pen them up as sheep to their shambles. That the 
Castle of Dublin, being neither manned nor victualed, they held 
as their own ; that the towns were for them and the country with 
them, the great ones in the North prepared to answer the first 
alarm ; and that the powerful men in the West are assured by 
their agents, to be ready as soon as the State is in disorder. That 
the Catholic King had promised, and the Jesuits from the Pope 
had warranted, men and means to second the first stirs, and roy- 



CONFISCATION IN ULSTER. 21 

ally to protect all their actions. That as soon as the State is 
dissolved, and the King's sword in their hands, they will elect a 
Governor, Chancellor, and Council ; dispatch letters to James I., 
trusting, from his unv^'illingness to embark in such a war, and 
to his facility to pardon, that he would grant their own condi- 
tions of peace and government, with toleration of religion ; that 
if the King listen not to their motions, then that the many days 
spent in England in debates and preparations, would give them 
time enough to breathe, fortify, and furnish the maritime coasts ; 
and at leisure call to their aid the Spanish forces from all parts." 
The writer of the letter declares, " that he interposed some doubts 
on them, which they readily answered ; and he pretended to 
them to consent to their projects, and that he took the method of 
this letter to give notice of their designs, though he refused to 
betray his friends ; in the meantime, he would use his endeavors 
to hinder any further practices." And he concludes, " that if 
they did not desist, though he reverenced the mass and Catholic 
religion equal to any of them, yet he would make the leaders of 
that dance know, that he preferred his country's good before their 
busy and ambitious humors." — Plowden. 

Every age of the world is characterized by some peculiar folly 
or wickedness, which distinguishes it from those which have pre- 
ceded it, as well as from those which lollow, with nearly as much 
accuracy as the varied features of the face distinguishes one man 
from another. 

Any impartial, enlightened reader, called upon to fix the pe- 
culiar feature of the seventeenth century, in the wide range of 
the British dominions, would, without hesitation, pronounce it to 
have been the age of forgery, perjury, and fabricated plots, con- 
trived for the purpose of overwhelming the innocent in ruin, and 
enriching the malefactors with their spoils. 

It is hardly possible to imagine at the present day, now that 
the dire passions which actuated so large a portion of the 
community in England and Ii eland during that period, have 
nearly or wholly subsided, what a number of these contrivances 
were employed ; how regularly they succeeded each other ; 



22 



CONFISCATION IN ULSTER. 



what mischievous consequences they produced ; and yet how ex- 
cessively stupid the most of them were. Many of them which were 
devoured with greedy ears by the great and Utile vulgar — were 
so ridiculous, so absurd, and so utterly improbable, that at the 
present day they would not impose on a gang of swine herds. 

Such being the way by which six of the thirty-two counties 
of which Ireland consisted, was obtained, let 'us now see how 
this " Solomon of the age" proceeded, who, as Leland says, 
" considered himself as the destined reformer and civilizer of a 
rude people ; and was impatient for the glory of teaching a 
whole nation the valuable arts of life — of improving their lands, 
extending their commerce, and refining their manners. 

There were three divisions made of the spoils. ''First — to Ensf- 
lisih and Scotch, who are to plant their proportions w'ith English 
and Siotch tenants. Second — to servitors in Ireland who may 
take English or Irish tenants at their choice. Third — to natives 
of those counties who are to be freeholders." 

" That in the surveys, observation be made what proportions, 
by name, are fittest to be allottcsd to the Britons, what to the ser- 
vitors, and what to the natives ; wherein respect is to be had that 
the Britons are to be put in places of best safety ; the natives to 
be dispersed, and the servitors planted in those places which are 
of greatest importance to serve the rest." 

*' The said undertakers, their heirs and assigns, shall not alien or 
demise their portions, or any part thereof, to the mere Irish, or 
to Such persons as wall not take the oath, which the said under- 
takers are bound to take, which shall be inserted in their letters 
patent. 

" The said undertakers shall not alien their portions during five 
years next after the date of their letters patent, but in this man- 
ner, viz : one-third part in fee farm ; another third part for forty 
years or under, reserving to themselves the other third part with- 
out alienation durins: the said five years. But after the said five 
years, they shall be at liberty to alien to all persons except the 
mere Irish, and such persons as will not take the oath. 

" The article concerning the servitors is : they shall take the 



CONFISCATION IN ULSTER. 23 

oath of supremacy, and be conformable in religion as the former 
undertakers. 

" They (the servitors) shall not alien their portions, or any 
part thereof, to the mere Irish, or to any such person or persons 
as will not take the like oath, which shall be inserted in their 
patents. 

*' The sword-men are to be transported into such other parts 
of the kingdom as, by reason of the waste-land therein, are fit- 
test to receive them, namely : Connaught, and some parts of 
Munster, where they are to be dispersed, and not planted together 
in one place ; and such sword-men as have not followers, nor 
cattle of their own, to be disposed of in his Majesty's service." — 
Harrises Hihernica. 

The author of " Vindicise Hibernicee," is not content with giv- 
ing the simple account of this vile affair, (page 180, 2nd edition, 
1823,) but makes comparisons about the Dismal Swamp of North 
Carolina, which is a most outrageous comparison, squaring nei- 
ther with the latitude nor the longitude, nor the localities of the 
two countries. There is no such thing as a swamp in all Ireland, 
in the direful sense an American reader would undrstand it ; bogs 
there are enough, but they are not dismal swamps. The whole 
Kingdom of Ireland is nearly all of it based on a range of moun- 
tain limestone, marble or granite; hence, in the vicinity of 
the bogs the country is not unhealthy. One can, and ought 
to make great allowance for an Irishman describing the miseries 
of his country ; but the truth, the whole truth, the simple truth, 
is best. I by no means intend to lessen the weight of any of 
his arguments or statements when well grounded, but compar- 
isons may be made to give a view of a question which the facts 
will not bear. 



CIVIL WARS. 



"Dat veuiam corvis ; vexat censara columbas." — Juvenal. 

He must be a very superficial reader or observer, who requires 
to be informed how very different the rewards or punishments 
which in this life are bestowed on acts absolutely similar : or 
how frequently an act which brings ruin on one man. elevates 
another to the highest pinnacle of worldly grandeur and pros- 
perity. Instances in illustration of this idea, are of frequent 
occurrence in public and private life. 

" The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate, 

Puzzled in mazes, and perplexed -with errors, 

Our understanding traces them in vain, 

Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search." — Addison. 

The three Kingdoms subject to the crown of England, were 
the theatres of civil wars almost contemporaneously. The con- 
sequence to the actors during^ their existence, and to their fame 
with posterity, were as different as light with darkness. The 
Irish who had every possible justification, on whom had been 
perpetrated almost every species, of outrage — who were goaded 
into civil war by an uninterrupted series of depredations and op- 
pression, paid a most ruinous foifeit in fortune, and in fame ; 
while those whose grievances were comparatively insignificant, 
and who, of course, had incomparably less justification, attained, 
living and dead, the highest honors, and many of them aggran- 
dized themselves in point of fortune and worldly honors, to the 
full extent of their wishes. This is not exactly as it should be ; 
it is almost too late completely to correct the prevalent errors on 
the subject — to wash away the foul stains which avarice, religi- 
ous bigotry, and national rancour impressed upon the sufferers. 
But though I may not, therefore, fully succeed, yet the at- 
tempt to effect these great objects, can hardly be otherwise than 
useful. 



CIVIL WARS. 25 

Charles L, a bigot and a despot by education, wickedly endea- 
vored to force a new religion on the Scotch. In this he only 
followed the examples of his predecessors, Henry, Edward, Mary, 
and Elizabeth, who had successively either forced or persuaded 
their servile Parliaments four times in the course of about thirty 
years, to make a radical change in the established religion. 

Let it be observed, however, that the new religion was not the 
antipodes of the old one, as had been the case with the changes 
of Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. The new religion bore many 
kindred features of the old ; in points of doctrine they were 
nearly sisters, although there was a marked difference in the church 
government. But the difference between the religion which 
Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth found " hy law established,^^ and 
the one they " established by law,^^ was incalculably greater than 
between the religion of Scotland at the accession of Charles I., 
and the religion he attempted to force on his subjects. 

An important consideration must not be passed over here. — 
The Scotch labored under scarcely any other grievance than the 
contemplated innovation in their religion ; their persons and pro- 
perty were sacred. 

They resisted the despotic and wicked interference between 
them and their Maker, They were perfectly justified in the eyes 
of Heaven and their fellow-men. It is not given by the living- 
God to any of the sons of men, to force the religious worship of 
their fellow-men ; and the attempt to change religious opinions 
by legal coercion, is as truly absurd as would be the effort to 
" change the hue of the dusk Ethiop." Brutal force, as has been 
observed, may coerce men into an apparent conformity, but it 
never made a convert yet, and never will : it is fated to produce 
martyrs or hypocrites. 

The evil destiny of Charles induced him to raise forces to sub- 
due the refractory Scotch. They obeyed the first law of human 
nature — the law of self-preservation. They raised forces to de- 
fend themselves, finally triumphed over the aggressor, and ex- 
torted from him a grant of every demand they chose to make. 



26 CIVIL WARS. 

He was totally foiled, and retired from the contest, defeated and 
overwhelmed with shame and disgrace. 

What has been the result as respects the Scotch ? They were 
honored during their lives; were rewarded by the Enghsh Par- 
liament with ^£300,000, and £25,000 monthly for their brotherly 
assistance,* and now occupy a pl»ce in history as men who em- 
barked in a holy cause, and were resolved to die or be free. 

May 21ff, 1641. 

^'Resolved, Sfc. — That the whole arrear of jG 120,000 be pre- 
sently paid to the Scots, out .of which the due debts of the coun- 
ties are to be deducted, and for the brotherly assistance of 
£300,000, it shall be settled and secured by the Kingdom to 
them." — JYalson. 

" As a testimony of their brotherly affection, the two houses 
had frankly undertaken to give them a gratuity of £300,000, 
over and above the £25,000 the month, during the time their 
stay should be necessary." — Clarendon. 

Thus, that very Parliament which so rancorously pursued the 
Irish to their utter ruin, and to the scaffold, for resistance to ty- 
ranny, lavished the wealth of their constituents on the Scotch, 
for similar resistance, without a tenth part of the provocation. 

A singular circumstance occurred, on taking the vote for the 
" brotherly assistance." Mr. Jervase Hollis, in a debate on the 
best and speediest means of their payment, said " that he knew 
no better or fitter than by English arms to expel them the King- 
dom," was called to the bar, and expelled the house. — Frankland. 

Times are changed. The Scotch, then such favorites, fell 
into disgrace in a few years. By a vote of the House of Com- 
mons, ten years afterwards, 1,500 of the prisoners of that nation 
were sold or given away to the Guinea merchants to work in 
the mines. — Whitelock. 

* Thi.s very extraordinary fact has attracted the attention of few English 
readers. The money paid to the Scotch on this occasion, is generally con- 
founded with the arrears paid them about five years afterwards, when they 
delivered Charles I., into the hands of the Parliament, after he had fled to 
their camp before Newark, on the final downfiill of his affairs. This, as ap- 
pears from the above extract, is a very great error. 



CIVIL WARS. 27 

In 1642, a civil war broke out in England, on various grounds. 
Charles I., was, in the first fifteen years of his reign, an arbitrary 
despot ; the proceedings in the Star Chamber Court were both 
tyrannical and cruel ; that the fines in that Court were oppres- 
sive, the punishments frequently most barbarous ; the exactions 
of ship-money, tonnage, and poundage, illegal and unjust ; and 
that they required and justified resistance, none but a cringing 
slave, deserving of the despot's lash, will deny. 

But it is impossible to read the history of that disastrous period 
with calmness and candor, without being convinced that all the 
substantial grievances of the nation were removed, and that am- 
ply adequate mounds were established to guard against a recur- 
rence of them before a single soldier was raised, a single drop of 
blood was shed, or a single step taken towards civil war or re- 
bellion. In no country whatever, was liberty more adequately 
secured, than it w^as by the laws enacted from the commence- 
ment of the Long Parliament in November, 1640, till February, 
1642. With every demand of Parliament during that period, 
Charles complied ; sometimes, it is true, very reluctantly, and 
with an ill grace. But until they claimed a right to exercise the 
power over the militia, which would have been a virtual aban- 
donment of the most important item of the regal authority, he 
had refused nothing. 

The English, nevertheless, took up arms. Civil war spread 
its horrors over the nation, with its hideous train of demoraliza- 
tion and dev astation. Torrents of blood were shed, conflagra- 
tion, rape, rapine, and murder, were most frequent ; the 
foundations of society were shaken, and the melancholy re- 
sult was, to place the sceptre in the hand of Cromwell, an 
unprincipled, canting hypocrite ; and after his death, and the 
unconditional restoration of Charles If., to establish passive obe- 
dience and non-resistance by an odiously positive law, under one 
of the most licentious and profligate monarchs that ever dis- 
graced the throne of England. And thus the leaders of that 
large, and powerful, and respectable party that struggled for the 
liberties of the English nation, actually paved the way for a far 



28 CIVIL WARS. 

worse state of things than existed at the period when the con- 
test commenced. To their intemperance, imprudence, and de- 
ficiency of political foresight, their country owed all its suffer- 
ings, under the scandalous reign of Charles II., the very worst of 
the despicable race of the Stuarts. Had they stopped short when 
they drew the teeth, and pared the nails of despotism — when 
they traced the strong line of demarcation on one side, and an- 
archy on the other, they would have deserved eternal remem- 
brance, and have conferred lasting and inestimable l^lessings on 
their country. Their improvidence places at their doors all the 
havoc and ruin, the demoralization and destruction of seven 
years' war, the failure of a noble experiment in favor of the 
rights of human nature, as well as the triumph they afforded to 
the friends of absolute power, by the odious abuse of liberty. — 
These stains can never be washed away. 

What, nevertheless, has been the result as to the actors on 
this stage ? 

They are regarded to this day with the highest veneration, by 
the most enlightened part of mankind. Their numerous follies, 
their vices, their crimes, are buried in oblivion. Their resistance 
to lawless tyranny has immortalized them. 

The Irish, at the same period, suffered almost every species of 
the most grinding, abominable, and revolting despotism that can be 
conceived. They were subject to heavy penalties for worship- 
ing God according to the dictates of their consciences, or for 
not attending on a worship which they believed heretical ; they 
were robbed of their estates by highhanded and flagitious tyran- 
ny and fraud ; they were subject to martial law with all its hor- 
rors, in time of profound peace ; their juries were ruinously fined 
and mutilated in their persons, for not finding verdicts against 
the plainest dictates of justice ; their churches were demolished 
or rapaciously seized by their oppressors ; their children were 
torn from their actual guardians, and transferred to the care of 
worthless strangers, who squandered their estates, and brought 
them up in habits of licentiousness ; in a word, it is difficult to 
conceive of any species of oppression which they did not endure. 



CIVIL WARS. 29 

They were goaded into insurrection. And if ever resistance 
of lawless outrage and tyranny were loudly and imperiously 
called for — if ever the standard of freedom claimed the sympa- 
thies of raankinj, the Irish standard had an indisputable title to 
it. And what has been the result ? Their most illustrious fam- 
ilies were reduced to beggary ; their estates, to the amount of 
millions of acres, were confiscated; above half a million of the 
natives were slaughtered, banished, or perished by famine and 
plague, the consequences of the ruthless and savage ferocity 
with which they were pursued by their enemies. They were 
covered with obloquy and abuse during their lives ; their memory 
has been detested ; and the crimes falsely alleged against them 
have been visited upon their descendants to the fourth and fifth 
generation, in the odious form of the vile code of laws " to pre- 
vent the growth of Popery." 

The monstrous, absurd, improbable, and impossible legend of 
the massacre of 1641, I shall fully investigate in a future chap- 
ter. I now confine myself to the simple circumstance of the in- 
surrection itself, divested of all its horrors, real or pretended. — 
And I dare aver, that if ever, from the creation of the world, 
there was a holy, sacred insurrection — an insurrection warranted 
by every law, divine or human, this was pre-eminently justified. 
Further, if the leaders of the Irish insurgents, who attempted 
to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of England, were 
traitors and rebels, then were William Tell, Maurice, Prince 
of Orange, Pym, Hambden, and Sydney, traitors and rebels. — 
One step further %Jf these Irishmen were traitors and rebels, 
Randolph, Henry, Hancock, Adams, Dickinson, Livingston, Lee, 
Rutledge, Clinton, and Washington himself, were traitors and 
rebels ; and not merely traitors and rebels, but traitors and rebels 
of the most atrocious kind, as the difference between the griev- 
ances that Washington and his illustrious compeers rose to re- 
dress, and those under which Ireland groaned, is very nearly as 
great as that between the liberty and happiness of an American 
citizen and the abject subjects of Turkish despotism. Indeed, 
if the Irish insurgents were traitors and rebels, then every man, 



30 CIVIL WARS. 

in every age and country, without a single exception, who ever 
dared to raise his arm against oppression, was a traitor and rebel. 
This is strong language, which will doubtless be in direct hos- 
tility with the prejudices of a large portion of my readers. — 
From their prejudices, I appeal to their reason and candor ; and 
if the decision be made by these respectable arbiters, I feel no 
doubt about the issue. For, to confine myself to the American 
Revolution, will any man, not lost to decency and common sense, 
dare to commit himself by comparing the grievances of America 
with those of Ireland ? — a three-penny tax on tea, with the court 
of Wards, the Star Chamber, the High Commission Court, the 
flagrant plunder of half the Province of Ulster, the rapine per- 
petrated in the Province of Connaught, the persecution of their 
religion, the seizure of their churches, the banishment of their 
priests, the restriction of their trade, the execution of martial 
law ; in a word, the endless detail of the most grievous oppres- 
sions on record ? If, then, the despotic and lawless imposition of 
a paltry tax on tea, warranted the subject in drawing the sword, 
and commencing a civil war, surely the oppressions of Ireland 
warranted it inexpressibly more. Indeed, it may be averred, and 
the decision submitted to any bar of enlightened men in Christen- 
dom, that were all the oppressions suffered by the American 
Provinces, from the first landing of the Pilgrims to the Decla- 
ration of Independence, aggregated into one solid mass, and all 
the oppressions of England under the Stuarts, thrown in to swell 
the amount, they would not equal the grievances suffered by the 
Irish during the reigns of James /., and Claries I. And it is 
moreover, hardly possible to find in the history of Ireland, from 
the invasion of Henry II., till the Union, any five consecutive 
years, in which the Irish had not greater ground for insurrection 
and resistance to the English Government, than England could 
plead in 1688, or America in 1775 or '76. 



MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 



"■ Falsliood and fraud grow up in every soil, 
The product of all climes."-rADDisoN. 



In order to proceed correctly in this investigation, I shall let 
the accusers narrate their own tales, in order to ascertain what 
is the sum and substance of the allegations : 

" The dopopulation in this Province of Munster, do well near 
equal those of the whole Kingdom." 

" There being, since the rebeHion first broke out, unto the time 
of the cessation made the 15th September, 1643, which was 
not full two years after, above 300,000 British and Protestants 
cruelly murdered in cold blood, destroyed some other way, or 
expelled out of their habitations according to the strictest con- 
jectures and computation of those who seemed best to undeistand 
the members of English planted in Ireland, besides those which 
fell in the heat of the fight during the war."— Temp/e. 

" Above 154,000 Protestants were massacred in that Kingdom 
from the 23rd October to the 1st March following."— i?a/9zew. 

" By some computations, those who perished by all these cru- 
elties, are supposed to be 150, or 200,000. By the most moder- 
ate, and prob'ably the most reasonable account, they are made 
to amount to 40,000 ! if this extenuation itself be not, as is 
usual in such cases, somewhat exaggerated." — Hume. 

" A general insurrection of the Irish spread itself over the 
whole country in such an inhuman and barbarous manner, that 
there were 40 or 50,000 of the English Protestants murdered, 
before they suspected themselves to be in any danger, or could 
provide for their defence by drawing together into towns or strong- 
holds." — Clarendon. 

That " Saul slew his thousands, and David his tens of thou- 
sands," was in the « olden time," sung by the women of Israel. 
Every Philistine was magnified into ten, every ten into a hun- 
dred, and every hundred into a thousand. But the amplifying 



32 MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 

powers of the Jewish women falls into insignificance when 
compared with those of the Anglo-Hibernian victims. Every 
Englishman that fell in battle or otherwise, was murdered. Every 
man was magnified into a hundred, every ten into a thousand, 
and every hundred into ten thousand. 

Such a spirit of exaggeration has prevailed, in a greater or 
less degree, in all ages. Even in common occurrences, hardly 
calculated to excite any interest, we find every day of our lives 
that the statements of current events are so highly colored as to 
differ full as much from the reality as the countenance of. a me- 
retricious courtezan who has exhausted her stores of carmine and 
white-lead, differs from the undisguised countenance of an inno- 
cent country damsel, who depends wholly upon the pure orna- 
ments of benificent nature. This being undeniably the case on 
topics where no temptation to deception exists, how dreadful 
must be the falsehood and delusion in the present case, where 
ambition, avarice, malice, bigotry, national hatred, and all other 
dire passions that assimilate men to demons were goaded into 
activity ! 

In all other cases but that of the history of Ireland, to convict 
a witness of gross, palpable, and notorious falsehood, would be 
sufHcient to invalidate the whole of his evidence ; but such has 
been the wayward fate of that country, that the most gross and 
manifest forgeries, which carry their own condemnation with 
them, are received by the world as though they were 

'• Confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ," 

or, when some are' found too monstrous to be admitted, their 
falsehood and absurdity do not impair the public credulity in the 
rest of the tales depending on the same authority. 

The materials for Irish statistics, at that early period, are rare : 
a deficiency which involves this subject in considerable difficulty. 
Were correct tables of the population of Ireland to be had, the 
task would be comparatively easy, and I could put down all those 
tales with as much ease as I have stamped the seal of flagrant 
falsehood on the many impostures already investigated. 



MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 



33 



But I avail myself of a sound rule — to employ the best evi- 
dence that the nature and circumstance of the case will admit ; 
and there are some important data %n which to reason, in the 
present instance, and to shed the light of truth on this intricate 
question, and dispel the dense clouds with which it has been en- 
vironed by fraud and imposture. 

Sir William Petty, the ancestor of the Landsdowne family, 
laid the foundation of a princely fortune, in the depredations per- 
petrated on the Irish after the insurrection of 1641. See page 

Of course he had no temptation to swerve from the truth 

in their favor; on the contrary, it was his interest, equally with 
the other possessors of the estates of the plundered Irish, to ex- 
aggerate their real crimes, and to lend the countenance of his 
reputation to their pretended ones. Hence his testimony, on this 
ground, so far as it tends to exonerate those upon whose ruin he 
raised his immense estate, cannot be excepted to by the enemies 
of the Irish. I shall, therefore, freely cite him in the case, and 
the reader will at once perceive to what an extent delusion has 
been carried on this subject. 

He states the aggregate number of the population who per- 
ished in eleven 'years, to have been 112,000, of whom "two- 
thirds were cut off by. war, plague, and famine." It is obvious 
to the meanest capacity, that if of 112,000, the whole number that 
fell in that space of time, " two-thirds w^re cut off by war, plague, 
and famine," that those who fell otherwise during the same pe- 
riod, were only 37,000. I hope to prove that even this statement, 
so Comparatively moderate, is extravagantly beyond the truth. 

Sir William Petty confutes himself beyond the power of re- 
demption. " Mar-k how a plain tale shall put him down." 

He bequeathed to posterity some statistical tables which throw 
some light upon this subject. They are very meagre, it is true ; 
but meagre as they are, I believe there are no others — at all 
events, I know of none, and must therefore avail myself of them. 

He informs us that the population in 1641, was 1,465,600, and 
that the relative proportions of the Protestants to the Catholics, 



34 MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 

were as two to eleven* ; of course it follows that the population 
was thus divided, 1,241,000 Roman Catholics, and 225,000 
Protestants. From this conclusion there is no appeal ! ! ! 

The supplies of people from England and Scotland until after 
the final defeat, capture, condemnation, and death of Charles I., 
were inconsiderable,! and surely it is impossible for a rational be- 
ing to believe, that out of 225,000, there could have been 112,000 
destroyed, and the residue been able to baffle and defeat the in- 
surgents who comprised the great mass of the nation. It will, 
therefore, I trust, be allowed, as an irresistible conclusion, that 
Sir William Petty's calculation, although so far, more moderate 
than any of the " tales of terror" quoted at the commencement 
of this chapter, is most extravagantly over-rated, probably trebled 
or quadrupled, and must, of absolute necessity, be false. 

But even admitting it to be correct, what an immense differ- 
ence between 37,000 in eleven years, and the numbers so confi- 
dently stated by the various writers of Irish history ? "What 
astonishment must be excited by Burton's 300,000 in a few 
months; Temple's 30,000 in less than two years ; May's 200,000 
in one month ; Warwick's 100,000 in one week ; or Rapier's 
40,000 in a few days ? or the following outrageous statement 
from Milton's second edition of his Iconoclastes : " The rebel- 
lion and horrid massacre of English Protestants in Ireland, to 
the amount of 154,000 in the Province of Ulster only, by their 
own computation, which added to the other three, makes up the 
total sum of that slaughter, in all likelihood, four times as great." 

Surely, there is not in the history. of the world, any parallel 
case of such gross, palpable, shocking, and abominable deception. 
Can language be found strong or bold enough to mark the dis- 
honor of those who, knowingly, propagated such falsehoods, or 

* For the present I admit this proportion ; as however exaggerated the 
number of the Protestants may be, it does not aifect the point at issue. But 
from various circumstances, it is doubtful whether there was one Protestant to 
eleven Catholics. 

t More Protestants, it is highly probable, removed from Ireland during the 
progress of the war, than the number of soldiers sent thither from England. 



MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 



35 



the folly or neglect of those who adopted and gave them curren- 
cy ? Their names ought to be held up as '' a hissing reproach." 
to deter others from following in their foul and loathsome track 
of calumny and deception. 

On the subject of the number of the victims of the pretended 
massacre, the observations of Carte are so judicious and un- 
answerable, that they would be sufficient, independent of the 
other evidence I have produced, to put down forever those miser- 
able legends about so many hundreds of thousands of the Pro- 
testants cut off in a few weeks, or months, or years, and to stamp 
on the foreheads of their authors, the broad seal of imposture. 
He states that the extravagant numbers asserted to be massacred, 
were " more than there were of English at that time in Ireland.^' 

'^ It is certain that the great body of the English was settled 
in Munster and Leinster, where few murders were committed ; 
and that in Ulster, which was the dismal scene of the massacre, 
there were above 10,000 Scots who had settled in great numbers in 
the counties of Down and Antrim ; and new shoals of them had 
come over upon the plantations of the six escheated counties ; 
and they were so powerful therein, that the Irish, either out of 
fear of their numbers, or some other politic reason, spared those 
of that nation, making proclamation, on pain of death, that no 
Scotsman should be molested, in body, goods, or lands, whilst 
they raged with so much cruelty against the English." — Carte. 

To these facts he adds the following reflections : '^ It cannot, 
therefore, reasonably be presumed, that there were at most above 
20,000 English souls, of all ages and sexes in Ulster at that 
time ; and of these, as appears by the Lord Justices' letter, there 
were many thousands got safe to Dublin, and were subsisted 
there for many months afterwards ; besides 6,000 women and 
children, which Captain Mervyn saved in Fermanagh ; and others 
got safe to Derry, Coleraine, and C^rickfergus, and went from 
thence and other parts into England." — lb. 

It is impossible to reconcile the latter part of these quotations 
with the rest — a case, as we have repeatedly stated, that inces- 
santly occurs in Irish histories. The author informs us, on ra- 



36 



MASSA.CRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 



tional grounds, that there were " not more than 20,000 English 
in Ulster ;" that " several thousands got safe to Dublin ;" that 
" 6,000 women and children were saved in Fermanagh ;" and 
that " others got safe to Derry, Coleraine, and Carrickfergus." 
These all-important and conclusive facts he connects with a 
statement of '• the extreme cruelty with which the insurgents 
raged against the English," and with a notice of the " dismal 
scene of the massacre," the subjects of which massacre are not 
very easily found, and at all events, could not have been very 
numerous ; for let us add together " several thousands," and 
" 6,000," and the " others" who " got safe" into the places spe- 
cified, which were garrisoned ; where, of course, in a time 
of violence and commotion, the inhabitants of the circumjacent 
country would naturally seek refuge, and where it is not extra- 
vagant to suppose, that '* the others" who thus " got safe," might 
have amounted to some thousands ; let us then deduct the ag- 
gregate from 20,000, the total number of the English, and we 
shall find a slender remainder. But the plain fact is, that the 
writers on this subject are so haunted by the idea of massacre, 
that although it rests on the sandy foundation of forgery and 
perjury, as shall be fully proved in the sequel ; and although 
many of tjieir own statements, in the most unequivocal manner, 
give it the lie direct, their minds cannot be divested of the ter- 
rific object. These passages from Carte, furnish a strong case 
in point. The most ardent friend of Ireland could not desire a 
much more complete proof of the fallacy of the accounts of the 
pretended massacre, than is here given by this author himself, 
who, nevertheless, wonderful to tell ! appears to resist the evi- 
dence of his own facts, and to be blind to the obvious inference 
to which they inevitably lead. 

Ferdinand Warner, a clergyman of the Church of England, 
appears to have been tli£ only writer who has gone into any 
elaborate investigation of the legendary tales of the pretended 
massacre, and his views of the subject well deserve the most se- 
rious attention of the reader. After stating the uncertainty of 
the accounts, and the consequent difficulty of making an exact 



MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 37 

estimate, he pronounces a strong and unequivocal sentence of 
condemnation on the Munchausen tales we are combating ; and 
avers that " It is easy enough to demonstrate the falsehood of the 
relation of every Protestant Historian of this Rebellion.'^ He 
proceeds to render a satisfactory account of the grounds on which 
this statement rests : *' To any one who considers how thinly 
Ireland was at that time peopled by Protestants, and the Prov- 
ince of Ulster particularly, where was the chief scene of the 
massacre, those relations upon the face of them, appear incredible.'* 
" Setting aside all opinions and calculations in this affair, 
which, besides their uncertainty, are, without any precision as to 
the space of time in which the murders were committed, the evi- 
dence from the depositions in the MS above-mentioned, stands 
thus : The number of people killed, upon positive evidence col- 
lected in two years after the insurrection broke out, adding them 
all together, amounts only to two thousand 07ie hundred and nine ; 
on the reports of other Protestants, one thousand six hundred and 
nineteen more -, and on the reports of some of the rebels them- 
selves, a further number of three hundred, making in the whole 
four thousand and twenty-eight. Besides these murders, there 
is in the same collection, evidence on the report of others, of 
eight thousand killed by ill usage ; and if we should allow that 
the cruelties of the Irish out of war, extended to these numbers, 
which, considering the nature of the several of the depositions, 
I think in my conscience we cannot, yet to be impartial, we must 
allow that there is no pretence for laying a greater number to 
their charge. This account is also corroborated by a letter which 
I copied out of the Council books of Dublin, written on the 5th 
May, 1652, ten years after the beginning of the rebellion, from 
the Parliamentary Commissioners in Ireland to the English Par- 
liament. After citing them^to further severity against the Irish, 
as being afraid, ' their behavior towards the people may never 
sufficiently avenge their murders and massacres,' the Commission- 
ers tell them that it appears, ' besides eight hundred and forty- 
eight families, there were killed, hanged, burned, and drowned, 



38 MASSACRE OF THE PROTESTANTS. 

six thousand and sixty-two.' " — History of the Rebellion and 
Civil War of Ireland, by Ferdinand Wood. 4to. London, 1768. 

This Reverend author further says : " So many of their say- 
ings which are recorded in the MS collection of depositions in 
my custody, are so ridiculous, or incredible, or contradictory to 
one another, as show plainly that they spoke what their own, 
or the different passions and sentiments of their leaders prompted ', 
sometimes, what came uppermost, or they thought, would best 
serve or vindicate their cause." 

" There is no credit to be given to anything that was said by 
those people, which had not other evidence to confirm it ; and 
the reason why so many idle, silly tales were registered, of what 
this body heard another body say, as to swell the collection to 
two and thirty thick volumes in folio, closely written, it is easier 
to conjecture than it is to commend." 

" The bulk of this immense collection, is paid evidence, and 
upon report of common fame ; and what sort of evidence that 
is, may be easily learnt by those who are conversant with the 
common people of any country, especially when their imagina- 
tions are terrified with cruelties, and their passions heated by 
sufferings." 

Authorities enough have been cited, to prove to every unpre- 
judiced mind, that the massacre of the Protestants in Ulster, was 
by no means to any great extent, and that it has been grossly 
and wilfully magnified by the enemies of the Catholics of Ire- 
land. Wrongs upon wrongs have, indeed, been heaped upon 
that unhappy country ; but I hope and trust, that the day is now 
dawning when tardy justice will be done her, and the wrongs 
OF Ireland be no more. 



FINIS 






THE- m> 

1 

WRONGS OF IRELAND,! 



FROM 



THE INVASION OF HENRY II. 



/ 



BY 



S. W. PALMER. 



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NEW-YORK : 

CASPER C. CHILDS, PRINTER, No. 80 VESEY STREET 

1850. 





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